WWPD Guides: Fine dining in Paris

People are often asking me how it is to be in Paris, especially now that the weather here is on the perfect side. And I'm always saying, it's not bad, not bad at all. The eternal microfiche, the hours it takes to actually enter the BNF - let alone reach one's assigned spot - once one has arrived at the closest bus stop, the dorm, the intense hatred that by law exactly one out of ten Parisians must feel towards even the best-behaved Americans ... Never mind! Yay Paris! (Yay a day when the microfiches have all been scanned onto Gallica. Of course, then I'd have had less of a reason to be here in the first place.)

A note on some recently photographed food:

-The cappuccino was not mine, but my friend Grace will vouch for it, as will I for my pretty but less photo-worthy macchiato. Coutume has won the approval of discerning Americans.

-The Greek salad, same place, is a grad student dream come true - six euros, comes with a basket of excellent bread, and the opportunity to sit for hours in pleasant environs, with fellow grad students (as I did this past time) or with work (as I will no doubt end up doing soon).

-Coutume has iced coffee! I did not know this when I ordered the macchiato. This is good to have found out, however. The iced coffee-Greek salad combo, with this weather, and it's almost possible to pretend Paris is Tel Aviv.

-Tel Aviv, with better pastry. The third photo brings us back to Le Boulanger des Invalides Jocteur, aka the best place in the world. More specifically, the pain au chocolat basket ("chocolatines," apparently - how Canadian!) is something I wish I could summon at any time, and just kind of dive in.

-Next up is Kunitoraya. Among my favorite meals out in Paris, if remarkably similar to my meals in.

-De Clercq, les Rois de la Frite. I've been only once, because I still can't figure out what point in the day it makes sense to get fries as a snack, as in, not as a meal accompaniment. I suppose the answer is, at the end of a night of debauchery, but I'm ancient and this does not so much apply to my life. But it's nice to know it's there.